Events

1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.

1715 – Seven days after a Spanish treasure fleet of 12 ships left Havana, Cuba for Spain, 11 of them sink in a storm off the coast of Florida. A few centuries later, treasure is salvaged from these wrecks.

1763 – Odawa Chief Pontiac's forces defeat British troops at the Battle of Bloody Run during Pontiac's War.

1777 – The U.S. Second Continental Congress passes a resolution that the services of Gilbert du Motier "be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States."

1790 – The first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

1874 – Dr. Patrick Francis Healy became the first Black man to be inaugurated as president of a predominantly White American university.

1941 – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question."

1948 – At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.

1948 – USS Nevada is sunk by an aerial torpedo after surviving hits from two atomic bombs (as part of post-war tests) and being used for target practice by three other ships.

1950 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 85 relating to Korean War is adopted.

1961 – At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in Major League Baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the ninth inning because of rain.

1964 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.